The Best Part About Picture Day is Nothing

So, I’ve been at my new job for a week. I love it, except for one thing – I had to have my picture taken for the website. I’m not photogenic AT. ALL. On top of that I’m, apparently, ridiculously allergic to mountain cedar which is at an extreme high right now. Thursday was picture day and my eyes, no, my entire face was swollen. Our graphic designer received my picture and asked me what I wanted him to do with it. This guy is one hell of a graphic designer. He had to touch up Tony Stewart’s promo picture and the result was Mr. Stewart looking about 10 years younger. The possibilities were endless for my photo! BUT, I declined. Unfortunately I was not able to let him touch up my photo…

One of the first tasks I was given at my last actual marketing job was to switch out all of the staff photos on the website. It was awful. First off the marketing job was in retail and as you may know, the turnover rate in retail is high, so switching out photos is almost constant. But that wasn’t even the worst part. Because I also do graphic design a lot of the staff asked me to make them look skinny or alter their photo in some way. After about the 5th person those requests lost their novelty and then I lost it.

I blame all of these apps that can make you look like a completely different person. Listen, I’m no exception when it comes to not always posting my unaltered photos – lord knows I use the shit out of Instagram filters. But I’m not using apps to give myself a different nose and slim myself down about 15 pounds. That’s one step below using someone else’s photo altogether.

“Can you make me look different in my photo?” Yeah, I can, but then I would be catfishing customers because the only way that’s going to work is if you print out your altered photo and wear it like a goddamn sandwich board. Also, I’m not trying to be accused of being a wizard. Once people find out I’m a wizard the requests will never end and each will be more ridiculous than the previous one, just like in those Bud Light commercials.

The point is I told everybody no. A) it was going to be way too much work than I was interested in doing and, 2) I thought everybody looked great the way they were. On top of that they were all photogenic, a trait I lack. So everybody had to deal with their photos as is, I was not changing shit.

Skip to last Thursday and I immediately thought of about 23 things I would change about my photo. But right before I told our graphic designer what to change, I had a flashback of the tantrum I threw about changing everybody’s photo and told him to just leave it. I had to. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. I felt like it was a very grown up decision I made, and that was some bullshit. The moral of the story is: The next time it’s picture day I’m hiring a make-up artist, hair stylist and someone to do lighting.